Oakland Tattoo Artists

Here are some of the best Oakland tattoo artists and shops according to our research. If you think we should add anyone to the list or if you see anything that should be edited, contact us by clicking here

Nate Burrow

Turo

Aaron Davis

Kenny Wayne

Anthony Roper

Matt Klass

Edward Swanson

Of those 532 tattoo shops in Oakland, Temple Tattoo is among the highest rated and has been for quite a few years now. Opened by owner Freddy Corbin way back in 1998 down the street from the famous Paramount Theater, Temple Tattoo is known for having a very positive atmosphere inside of their doors and plenty of highly skilled artists at their chairs. It’s a great place to go regardless of whether you are new to tattooing or just looking for an elite Oakland tattoo studio to get some new ink.

While Temple Tattoo is an excellent tattoo shop for many people, it is not going to be the perfect pick for everyone. Each one has different layouts and a different roster of artists, so it just makes sense that some shops will be right for you while others won’t even if they are popular. We recommend taking a look at some Oakland tattoo shops’ websites for their policies and their roster of artists, then you can break that list down to two or three favorites. Once you’ve come up with a few that you like, then you should physically visit them so you can know for sure which Oakland tattoo shop is best for you. That extra bit of work that you put in can greatly increase your chances of ending up with an amazing tattoo.

You will find that a lot of people who are from Oakland like to show their pride in the city by getting tattoos that have something to do with Oakland. There are a lot of great design options to choose from if you want to get an Oakland related tattoo and below you will see just some of the many tats that locals like to get.

While it used to be that Oakland Raiders tattoos were the most popular Oakland-related designs found in the city, you will now find more people getting Oakland Athletics designs since the Raiders are moving to another city. Oakland Athletics designs usually just show one of the logos of the town’s baseball team, but you can do a lot with these types of tats. You can get the outline of California and place the logo in Oakland, or you can even surround the logo with other designs that mean a lot to you.

Oakland is also known for its fantastic oak trees. Oak trees, like most trees, can look amazing in tattoo designs, so a lot of people will opt to include one in their Oakland-inspired tattoos. Tree tattoos can easily be blended with other designs and can look great in color or black and grey, and they look great as arm tattoos and as back tattoos.

Lake Merritt is often seen as the most beautiful part of Oakland and it is often included in Oakland tattoos. Most locals walk by or even jog around Lake Merritt whenever they can, so it definitely becomes a big part of some locals’ lives. It looks especially great when it is part of Oakland skyline designs.

Oakland resided in Alameda county and it is the seat of that county as well. You can find Oakland in Northern California and it sits opposite of San Francisco on the east side of the San Francisco Bay. Oakland’s site is found on a coastal, flat plain that heads toward hills in the east and that runs along the shore. As far as their climate goes, Oakland has cool winters with bouts of rain while the summer in Oakland is sunny and warm with weather similar to Mediterranean areas.

Oakland is the eastern hub of the widespread metropolis that includes San Jose to the southeast of the city and San Francisco right across the bay. Close to Oakland you can find San Leandro to the south, Alameda to the west and Berkeley to the north of Oakland. The city also totally encompasses the city of Piedmont. As far as that amount of land Oakland covers, it is around 78 square miles while the population as of 2000 was just about 400,000 but is about 420,000 these days.

History of Oakland:

The area that is now called Oakland was lived on by the Costanoan Indians and they were found in the late 18th century by Spanish explorers that came into the area. The Rancho San Antonio, which was a Spanish land grand in 1820, was established in this region. Then in the 1840’s, logging started to be an industry in the area followed by the California Gold Rush of 1849 and Oakland was born as a center for people and goods. Then a squatter named Moses Chase and some of his friends purchased some farmland after leasing it in 1850 and ended up laying out the town known as Clinton and later known as Brooklyn. The following year, Horace Carpentier created a ferry that went from Oakland to San Francisco and ended up buying a site for a town that was just to the west of Brooklyn. He named this area Oakland for the number of Oak Trees that grew on the grassy plains of the area. The area was extended by Carpentier and his acquaintances in 1854 and then had it incorporated. Brooklyn and Oakland were separated by a marsh that ended up being bridged in 1853 and they and then they came together to form a bigger city in 1872.

Oakland was picked as a first transcontinental railroad terminal in the west in 1869 and at that point, Oakland started to develop its harbor. Oakland was the recipient of a large number of refugees after the San Francisco fire and earthquake of 1906. The population of the city greatly increased after this disaster. The San Francisco/Oakland Bay Bridge is 8.25 miles long. It was opened in 1936 and naval and military installations were created there in the 1940’s which was another factor in growth as well as a diversified and heavy industrial development. In addition to the population growth because of the above reason, Oakland saw an influx of African Americans coming into the community looking for work after the second World War.

Oakland was on the decline by 1960 and the population started to drop. In 1950, the population had reached a peak of around 385,000 and then poverty struck the inner city along with crime and urban blight. The racial tensions started to increase as time went on and the Black Panther Party was founded in the African American community in 1966 and ended up being the main force in the fight for the black power movement. This movement started the process of change and even though Black Panther member, Bobby Seale, was unsuccessful in his run for mayor in 1973, Lionel Wilson was named Oakland’s first black mayor in 1977.

Then came the 1970’s where efforts to rejuvenate the city had begun and then it was reinforced by the finishing of the Bay Area Rapid Transit in 1972 which was a light rail link across the bay to San Francisco. Much of Oakland’s city center was really built over the next 30 years and many of the poorer neighborhoods were gentrified with the arrival of more money into the city. By the 80’s, Oakland’s population had jumped over the prior high of the 1950’s. Over the coming years, the number of Hispanic people that moved to Oakland jumped and ended up being about one fifth of the population in the city while the African American population, at one time be the biggest part of the population, was declining. On October 17, 1989, the growth and spark that Oakland had captured took a major hit when a very strong earthquake struck the area and caused a great deal of damage to the Bay Bridge and parts of the highway collapsed as well. By the late 90’s, the repairs on the bridge were completed.

Oakland: A Contemporary City

Today, the economy of Oakland is diversified in an impressive way. While light manufacturing, high technology and food processing is still important in the area, business services like retail trade, business services, transportation, health care and other services are the focus of the economic activity in the area. Between the bay shore and Alameda Island you can find Oakland’s deep water port that spans over 19 miles of different harbors.

There are also many locations of higher education in the Oakland area. These include Holy Names University, Mills College, the Berkeley campus for the University of California and the California College of the Arts to name a few. Some of the well known museums in the area include the Chabot Space and Science Center, the Western Aerospace Museum and the Oakland Museum.

By reading this, you should start to get the idea of the rich history of Oakland and why it is such a popular destination for those that visit the west coast. If you and the family area looking for a great place to visit in northern California, give Oakland a shot and we promise you will not be disappointed in what you find. While you’re there.

Oakland, California has a rich tattoo history. Featuring shops such as Industrial Tattoo, Zebra Tattoo & Body Piercing, Temple Tattoo, Sacred Rose Tattoo, Sacred Tattoo, and Tattoo 13, Oakland is a great destination if you’re looking for some new ink. With a population of around 395,000, there are lots of potential customers for the parlors in town. Yelp currently lists 43 different shops when searching for “tattoo” in Oakland. Google Places lists 532 different tattoo shops in the Oakland area, which shows how competitive the city truly is. Sacred Rose Tattoo currently boasts one of the largest selections of artists in the area, listing the following artists on their site: Karen Roze, Mark Bode, Trey Barnett, Ian Manely, Buffy Lauer, Shotsie Gorman, Hannah Cowan, and Gregg Quinn. When doing research for your artist, we suggest not paying too much attention to price because quality is much more important when you’re going to be living with the artwork for the rest of your life.